Sunday, May 08, 2011

A Little History

Aa a forner history teacher I treasure the document before me, a signal dated 7 May 1945 and stamped CONFIDENTIAL. Let me reproduce it below.

TO; COMMANDING GENERAL OISE INTERMEDIATE SECTION

PARAGRAPH ONE COLON A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE GERMAN HIGH COMMAND SIGNED THE UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER OF ALL GERMAN LAND CMA SEA CMA AND AID FORCES IN EUROPE TO THE ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE AND SIMULTANEOUSLY TO THE SOVIET HIGH COMMAND AT ZERO ONE FOUR CENTRAL EUROPEAN TIME CMA SEVEN MAY CMA UNDER WHICH ALL FORCES WILL CEASE ACTIVE OPERATIONS AT ZERO ZERO ZERO ONE BAKER CMA NINE MAY PD

PARAGRAPH TWO COLON EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY ALL OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS BY ALLIED EXPERITIONARY FORCES WILL CEASE AND TROOPS WILL REMAIN IN PRESENT POSITIONS PD MOVES INVOLVED IN OCCUPATIONAL DUTIES WILL CONTINUE PD DUE TO DIFFICULTIES OF COMMUNICATION THERE MAY BE SOME DELAY IN SIMILAR ORDERS REACHING ENEMY TROOPS SO FULL DEFENSIVE PRECAUTIONS WILL BE TAKEN PD

PARAGRAPH THREE COLON ALL INFORMED DOWN TO AN[D] INCLUDING DIVISIONS CMA TACTICAL AIR COMMANDS AND GROUPS CMA BASE SECTIONS CMA AND EQUIVALENT PD NO RELEASE WILL BE MADE TO THE [PRESS] PENDING AN ANNOUNCEMENT BY THE HEADS OF THE THREE GOVERNMENTS PD

SIGNED EISENHOWER

Scrawled in the lower right hand corner are the initials of the US Army clerk who typed the signal, "was", i.e., Warren Allen Smith, a secular humanist friend of mine in New York who is the author of Who's Who in Hell: A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists and Non-Theists (Barricade Books. 2000), a 1237 -page volumn that weighs nearly seven pounds, and Celebrities in Hell (Barricade Books, 2002).

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